


A Pure Soul Must Burn Within You

by cabbagekitty



Category: Diablo III
Genre: Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Masturbation, Sexual Fantasy, UST
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2018-12-10 05:14:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11684826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cabbagekitty/pseuds/cabbagekitty
Summary: Kormac struggles with his desire for the Nephalem.





	1. A Necromancer's Smile

The necromancer was white as bleached bone, hair and skin. Dark eyes blazing in a face the same pale ivory as the skeletal soldiers she commanded. Sana had raised the dead, reaped the living, tearing a bloody swath across Khandhuras.  
That long, narrow body wielded such wretched power and righteous fury.

And Kormac could not help but find her fair. The delicate, inner curve of breast. The leanness of waist. Length of leg. 

Rectitude of spirit. 

But he had forsaken the sins of the flesh. For love was the surest way to a tragic end. So, he clung to the shield of his faith and the armor of championship. Spending miles as the bulwark at Sana’s back, searching for any of corruption. And finding only justice.

On the steps of the Drowned Temple, the Templar finally admitted, “I am glad that fate has brought us together on this path.”

Sana paused, scythe speckled with the gory kiss of death, and asked, “Why is that?”

Kormac had not anticipated the question and answered with more candor than he intended, “You fight with both honor and ferocity. I know that a pure soul must burn within you.”

She smiled. It was the first he’d seen from her. And it lit her face like moonlight on a frozen lake.  
The image haunted his bedroll. Burning in his gut and the cup of his groin. Kormac refused to dishonor her- and his order- by stooping to self-abuse. But for days, he only got to sleep when exhaustion had overtaken desire.

Sana smiled again when they saved that scoundrel, Lyndon, from his own devious machinations. He pulled them into his troubles, ran from them, and then, had the audacity to tag along.

“You wish to join me?” Sana brushed away the half-formed golem’s grasping fingers. The horrific thing followed her like a puppy, constantly petting her thigh or knee. Kormac hated the pathetic creature.

Lyndon had flailed, looking over his shoulder, “Yes, yes! You look like you know a lot about markets. Now, lead the way!”

As they fled through the opened the gate, the rogue pawed through his pack and yelped, “Wait—the relic is a fake! Gods, I should have known.”

When Sana smiled this time, a secret smile just for him, Kormac felt it caress his chest, even through iron, leather, and linen. For the first time, his faith was a burden, rather than a boon.

That night, when he’d settled into his rented room in Tristam, Kormac could hear Sana’s deep, even breathing through the wall. _What did she wear to bed?_ he wondered. 

If they had to sleep rough in the field, Sana slept fully armored, as did he. Best to remain vigilant. 

In Tristam though, she stripped down to smooth, black leather, delicate linen showing along the deep vee of her vest. _Did she sigh with relief as the leather peeled down?_ Nipples shadowed against the damp breastband. They would be small and pale and hard.

His hands would easily span her ribs as he lifted them up for his mouth. Kormac did not remember the taste of a woman’s breast, but just the idea had his cock pulsing against his thigh. What he had never imagined was Sana making any of the soft, desperate noises he’d heard in less-reputable inns.

Sana did not demand. Did not plead. She asked hard questions in an implacable voice. And she never suffered foolishness. No, she would not sigh or whine as he sucked and bit at her nipples.

No, eyes patient and clear, she would ask, “Will you lay with me, Kormac?”

Without expectation if he said yes and without disappointment if he said no. Only trusting that he knew the consequences of his actions. After he said yes, because he would say yes, Sana would be nearly silently.

Hard breath against his throat. The scrap of teeth across his collarbone. A silvery scar- from before he joined the order- ran from sternum to thigh. Her tongue following the raised flesh.

Face burning, Kormac slipped a hand into his breeches. Two strokes brought him to full mast. His palm rasped, hot and tight but rough.

Any discomfort faded away as he imagined her stern, beautiful mouth softened around his manhood. Cool fingers firm against his hipbones. Tiny, perfect breasts pressed inside his bare thighs. 

Pleasure coiled up his spine.

Only when Kormac envisioned desire burning her dark eyes black, did his climax overtake him. His seed ropes of shame across his stomach.

The next morning, he was terse, more than usual, and avoided Lyndon’s knowing eyes across the breakfast table. 

Relief- and guilt- stabbed at him when Magda murdered Deckard Caine. At least then, his focus could shift from Sana to justified revenge.


	2. A Templar's Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sana realizes that Kormac's infatuation may not be one sided.

The Templar was a big man. Not in height, he was not very much taller than Sana, but broad of chest and shoulder. Made larger with purpose and fury. Fine, cognac colored eyes set in a rawboned face. Perhaps twenty years her senior, though the veil of his blind faith in the order made him seem younger.

He wanted her. As a man wants a woman and badly. 

Sana might not have felt the beat of desire’s wings since descending into death’s dark city, but she recognized its feathers. 

All of that, however, was immaterial compared to the strength of his arm and the bulwark of his shield. Kormac became a constant, comforting weight at her back.

After Deckard’s funeral, in Tristam’s square, dusk like a cloak of orange and purple, Kormac told her of his plan to seek his past and said, “I must ask you to promise me something. Should I... lapse into my old sins, whatever they may be, you must kill me as I killed Jondar.”

His eyes were soft on her face, with nothing but trust in their brown depths. His dark lashes spiked against his cheek as if he had been crying. “Tell me your plan,” she said.

“I found a journal on Jondar's corpse, written in an ancient templar cipher.” He wet chapped lips with the tip of his tongue. “I can translate it, but it will take me some time. Perhaps studying his treachery will give me a clue into my past.”

“A Priest of Rathma maintains the balance, Kormac.” Sana nodded and turned to Haedrig’s forge. The blacksmith was stripping ore from useless armor, but her eyes were blind to his struggles and curses.

_He **will** not fall as Jondar did, but if he does_ , she resolved, _Kormac will not go alone into the next world_. 

A strange sensation fluttered in her chest. Pain.

They were _friends_ , of a sort. Companions, surely. Of course, she should not want to kill him. 

That disconcerting quiver of emotion sufficiently explained, their quest consumed her. Consumed them both. 

Until the hot sands of Caldeum exploded with a swarm of wasps. Not the diminutive garden pests. Sand wasps the size of vultures, stingers dripping venom. 

They died, as everything died, as everyone died, and became nothing more than ichor on her scythe. But not before one pierced her armor and lodged a stinger in the gap beneath her armpit.

Sana twisted, grasping for the barb, and choked on a curse. The desert spun, dunes and stars and yellow moon, legs sprawled like limp, dead things.

Her chest gripped by crushing, burning bands, she spat blood and gasped, “Kormac…”

And then he was there, as if she’d conjured and commanded him. He’d lost his helm, sweat plastered hair to his forehead, concern carved into the corners of his eyes. She blinked and his gauntlets were gone. 

“Losing time,” she rasped, blood hot on her lips. “Poison barb. Punctured lung.”

“Sana, hold on. I cannot see.” His bare palms scalded her face. “I have to build a fire.”

He worked like a man possessed with purpose. All righteous fury replaced with desperation. Sana knocked the coronet of bone from her head and tossed bracers into the night.

Kormac returned, the fire painting shadows into the hard planes of his face that failed to hide his hot blush. “I need to remove your breastplate.” 

When Sana nodded and he still hesitated, she nearly laughed. “Will you let me drown in my own blood to protect your virtue?”

“No, I will not.” Kormac flushed even darker, but thumbed open the catches beneath her arm and lifted the armor free. The motion brought him close enough to count his eye lashes, feel his nose against her cheek, to taste his breath.

He tasted alive. 

Sana inhaled, swallowing his exhalation, and felt it burn all the way down her throat to settle in the bowl of her pelvis.

He then set at the laces down the front of her leathers. Big hands as delicate as they could be, pulled and tugged, wide knuckles brushing the inner curves of her breasts.

Poison, pain, desire swirled together and yanked control from her grasp. Sana groaned as he peeled her down to linen and flesh and blood.

The tips of his ears were scarlet and his pulse beat like a trapped animal at the base of his throat, but his left hand braced steady against her ribcage while the other fished for the stinger buried in her chest.

Kormac straddled her thighs, knees on the outside of her hips, using his bulk to hold her still.

“I’ve hold of it, now.” He met her eyes in the glittering dark. The boil of lust and guilt and desperation in their depths only served to stoke the strange fire rolling in her belly. “On three, then.”

She nodded. 

“One, two,” Kormac yanked loose the barb in a stream of crimson and pus, pouring the healing poultice directly in the wound, holding his palm over it until the magic sealed it closed.

Sana bared her teeth on a hiss and arched, pressing into the strong curl of his fingers and strength of his chest. His nose brushed hers like the whisper of a kiss.

Then, he was gone. The heat and life of him snuffed out like a candle as he jumped back like a scalded cat. Her blood on his hands some how intimate.

Kormac coughed and stammered, “Well, you’ll not die of it, but we best wait for daylight to return. I'll have first watch.”

Confused and hallow with emotion, Sana curled into her bedroll and dreamed. 

Dreamed of one broad palm pressed between her bare breasts. The other buried between her legs as it had been in her chest. The stretch of his fingers burned inside her, like life, like living, like a Templar's breath against her mouth. 

And when she woke, she remembered only Kormac whispering, "Rathma himself could not take you from me."


	3. The Taste of Blood and Wine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, that escalated quickly...

Sana’s breath had caught and choked in her chest all night, but her lung hadn’t collapsed as far as the templar could tell. When, after checking on her for the ninth time, he’d almost slotted himself behind her just to feel her live, Kormac had retreated to the fire’s sickly edge.

Settled into the dunes, elbows on upbent knees, red stained hands dangling like accusations, he prayed through the darkest part of the night. “My faith is my shield. My faith is my shield. My faith is my…” 

Dawn came gently, teasing fingers of lemon peaking over the flat horizon, gentling lavender and periwinkle between the stars. The sky seemed to sigh, _like a woman welcoming a long-lost lover._

The thought embarrassed Kormac, even with his back to the camp and sleeping necromancer. But he could not help thinking of her pressed beneath him in the sand.

_She felt like fear and exhilaration. Riding a dragon. And waiting to feel its teeth._

Shame’s familiar folds cloaked his shoulders. Sana might have died and he only remembered the taste of her struggling exhales. Blood and wine against his mouth.

The earth and musk scent clinging in her hair. Perfume in strands of silk.

The slide of her nose his cheek. 

Her ribs had fit his palms exactly as he imagined. He still felt her ghost seared into his bones.

The way she’d writhed between his thighs and the flash of fire in her dark eyes seemed passion rather than pain. 

And he’d wanted nothing more than to drag his bloody hands to cover her breasts. To leave his fingerprints on her white flesh and on her fierce soul. To lick into her mouth and eat the taste of death from her lips.

He was hard. Again. 

“My faith is my shield. My faith is my shield,” Kormac whispered it. Wished it. Then, stuttered to a stop when he heard her voice, rusty and rough.

“Kormac?”

“I am here.” _Not even the Grand Maester could part me from you._

He didn’t turn to face her, but somehow listening to the rustling cloth and slushing steps branded lust deeper into his spine.

Blankets fluttering like the wings of some great crow, Sana perched next to him, bare feet long and pale in the sand. 

_She must have kicked off her boots in the night._ “How’s your wound?”

The sugary warmth of sleep buffeted his armor as she spread her wings, folding back the blanket’s edge and opening her chest toward him. Her linen vest had gone completely sheer in the growing sunlight, nipples sweet shadows begging for his mouth. 

_My faith is my shield._ Kormac took hold of her elbow and leaned close.

In her arm’s delicate hallow, the wound had left only a flat shiny scar. He ran a thumb across it and she flinched.

“Does it pain you?” He dropped her arm and glanced up. She puffed through open lips, eyes hot and liquid.

“No. That was not pain.” Sana turned more fully into his body, blankets puddling behind her. Her gaze fingertips on his face. “Kormac?”

“Aye?” He swallowed and thought he might pass out.

“Take off your pauldrons.” She fluttered hands toward the wide iron pieces winging out from his shoulders.

Before he’d made the conscious decision to obey, the right guard thudded to the sand and he tore off the left with the same speed. Kormac reached for his breastplate.

“No.” Sana cupped his jaw, palms burning like frozen metal, and tilted it to some mysterious angle. “Can I?”

She still had blood flecks on her chin, but she looked a goddess, rising on her knees like the sun over the horizon behind her. 

Kormac gave the only answer: “Anything.”

Her mouth on his was a revelation. She kissed him like a benediction. Nothing of uncertainty or desperation in the gentle motion of her lips. 

And then she exhaled. The air that had been in her lungs ragged in his ears.

Kormac kissed her back. Hands fisted where spine met hips, he rose to kneeling, taller than her once more, and bowed her with thoughts made flesh on flesh.

Their teeth clinked together. Sana ran her hands into his hair, scraping nails against his scalp, and pulled back.

Her mouth was swollen, alabaster flesh scuffed red from his new beard, a blush mottled down her throat and across her upper chest. 

Kormac was thankful for the iron crush of his breastplate because only that kept his heart from beating free of his chest. “Forgive m…” he cut off his apology when she yanked, just once, on his hair.

“Put your hands on me.” She smoothed thumbs over his ears and he shuddered. “And open your mouth.”

“Aye.” He dragged palms up the long ridge of her spine, around her ribs, to rest just below her breasts. Thumbs met at her sternum. “Like this?”

“More.” She groaned it and sealed his lips with hers.

It’s as close to begging as he’d ever heard her, so he touched her the way he dreamed. Cupping palms over her breasts, rolling the smooth linen against her nipples. 

She ground against him. Kormac would have been embarrassed by the obvious jut of his cock on her belly, but Sana licked into his mouth. And nothing else mattered.

_This is how I die. With the taste of her on my tongue. Smoke and wine and sleep and blood._

He tipped her back into the nest of blankets and slipped a hand into the neck of her vest. It ripped. She moaned and locked ankles behind his back.

Kormac knew he must have been crushing her with his weight, but he finally felt her flesh, a miracle against his callused palms. 

Sana pulled her mouth free and panted into his ear. “Have you done this before?”

“I…” Kormac heaved frantic breaths and planted both hands in the sand by her ears. “I do not remember.” 

“Then.” She closed her eyes, a line of struggle between her brows. “We need to stop.”


	4. Being Good and Righteous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A wild angst appears.

For days, Sana blazed. Lust’s molten weight heavy inside her pelvis like punishment for her noble intentions. If she’d laid with Kormac in those golden sands, she’d not burn so now. 

And Kormac. The templar shimmered with frustration. The beasts and fiends of the desert felt his wrath. 

In the cool of one night, Sana joined Lyndon and Kormac, sitting cross-legged at the campfire. The scoundrel slurred his way through a wine-skin. Fire licked shadows into the crags of the templar’s face as he sharpened his dagger.  
Sana wanted to chase them away with her own kisses, to drag her lips across the column of his throat to his sharp-angled jaw.

Kormac glanced her through the flames, cheekbones flushed and eyes heavy as if he knew her thoughts. He’d stripped down to his shirt so that Haedrig could hammer smooth the dents fury left in his armor. Dark whorls of hair showed at his open throat. 

Lyndon belched and leaned his elbows back into the sand. “Kormac, the thing about being good and righteous or whatnot is that it sounds completely dull.”

“Nonsense. It is an honor for me to fulfill the vows of my order.” Kormac paused with his blade against the whetstone. “To serve faithfully and forgo the pleasures of the flesh.” 

_Forgo the pleasures of the flesh_ … It hit her skin like acid. Priests of Rathma, too, usually abstained from carnal pleasures. Those who had held death’s hand rarely craved warmer delights. But Sana had not completed her training. 

And so, she wanted. Fiercely. 

She wanted the templar’s hands on her breasts, his breath in her lungs, his hard cock pressed inside her. Hips working between her slick thighs. 

“The flesh? Do you mean women?” Lyndon asked, incredulous.

“Someone like you couldn't possibly understand!” 

Neither did Sana. The Balance of the universe was clear to her. Her decision to be with him was unequivocal, but his was not. _No,_ she thought, _I will **not** ask him to betray himself._

Lyndon laughed. A good laugh, deep and happy, that slapped her.

“I need rest.” Sana stood and brushed sand from her leathers. She felt more than saw Kormac follow the motion, his gaze lingering on her thighs and on her back as she walked away. 

Moonlight pooled lilac in the dunes around the hidden camp, spilling to the east out to infinity. To the west, the Caldeum Bazaar spat yellow torch light at the stars, like a cancer spreading toward the horizon. She’d set her tent up a little way from camp, apart enough that the rattling of bones and talismans would not wake her companions.

Just outside the tent’s flap, her malformed golem had built a little nest from stolen blankets and animal hides. _What a sad, little effort of a golem,_ she thought. One that she should pull apart and remake now that her powers had grown.

It roused itself when she lit the lantern and mewed until she petted the top of itself bare skull. It purred into her palm. 

She smiled. 

“I had thought it lost.” Kormac’s voice echoed into midnight. 

“What?” Sana had ignored his footsteps behind her. If he wished to speak, he would; if not, she would be silent.

“Your smile.” He took a step into the dim glow, linen clinging to muscle and sinew, and then another so that they were nearly touching. "Sana... I..."

She traced the vulnerable curve of his collarbones with her fingertips. 

Kormac shuddered and clutched her upper arms. Desire, diamond sharp and iron hot, knifed between them. He tried again, "Sana... you were right," and leaned his brow against hers. “We needed to stop.”

"I know, Kormac." 

“Will you kiss me, now?”

Sana kissed him because he asked it. Because he was sad.

Because he smelled alive. Of campfire and sweat. Of the blood thundering in his jugular. She pressed lips to that pulse. To his chin. The corners of his mouth. 

And then he kissed her back. Parted her lips with his. Dragged his tongue across the roof of her mouth. Sana groaned and set nails into the skin of his nape.

His breath tasted like resolution. 

Kormac pulled away, eyes on her face. Memorizing. Thorny shame hung on his shoulders, but desire still sparked in his brown eyes. “Whatever I remember, I will still be a templar.” 

“I **know** , Kormac.” Sana cupped his cheeks, smoothed the concern drawn between his eyebrows. He licked his chapped lips, opened and closed them without speaking, and walked back to the main camp.

Sana turned into her tent and closed the flap behind her. She did not watch Kormac disappear into the dark. Did not see the templar curse himself and look over his shoulder.


End file.
